What is it?Little starfish?

[Levi Marek]

 

[andrewey]

asterina starfish

 

[andrewey]

Also, congratulations on your first post!

 

[SaltyCupcake]

Welcome to R2R!! Looks like you've got an Asterina starfish. They can proliferate pretty quickly, so some folks consider them pests.

 

[canadianeh]

get it out ASAP! Most are pest

 

[SPR1968]

It’s an asterina starfish with the ‘potential’ to eat your corals.

I wouldn’t take any chances and remove it as they can multiply very quickly

And Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[andrewey]

get it out ASAP! Most are pest

I wouldn't say most are pests- actually I'd say the overwhelming number of varieties I've encountered are actually fantastic additions to a reef tank. I go out of my way to add asterinas to every tank I've ever owned. If you want to be 100% certain, I would remove, otherwise the odds are probably in your favor.

 

[AcroNem]

Aquilonastra, formerly called Asterina. 33-35 species, the majority are completely harmless. Several species will eat corals or other invertebrates, but are nowhere near as common. They get labeled as a pest due to how quickly they reproduce and that we tend to take a few horror stories with some hitchhikers and turn them into the absolute fact about the whole genus they belong to.

 

[ca1ore]

Most are harmless, but they can proliferate to plague proportions. I think the small fauna/flora is big part of the appeal of a reef tank, so I never really understand the 'get it out fast' mentality. Pretty easy to mechanically remove them if there get to be too many, or you can employ a biological control.

 

[andrewey]

I had no idea about the name change to Aquilonastra - thanks @AcroNem !

 

[AcroNem]

I had no idea about the name change to Aquilonastra - thanks @AcroNem !

The change was supposedly made a while back, like 2012. No one will ever use the new genus, like when a coral name is changed, but I always do anyway

 

[member 99594]

Personally, I would take them out. They do eat coraline and some will smother zoas and kill them.

I understand there are some that are bad and some that are good, however, I would rather know they are not there than in there eating away my coral and/or coraline. my 2 cents!!